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Romania plans to revise its 'green certificates' scheme and cut subsidies for certain renewable energy projects from 2014, as part of its efforts to prevent overcompensating investors.

This move was announced by the country's energy regulator ANRE.

Although the green certificates scheme has been termed as too generous by the European Commission, it has been crucial in attracting huge investments worth billions of euros, especially in wind power.

However, the costs have also increased the power bills and inflation, which has become a burden for households.

Power prices have gone up by 10%, of which 4% came from green energy.

This has prompted ANRE to reduce its number of green certificates granted for solar technologies from six to five and for small-hydro projects from 3 to 2.

Green certificates are granted to solar power developers for each megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity produced until 2017.

ANRE board member Zoltan Nagy-Bege was quoted as saying by the state news agency Agerpres that the regulator will propose to the government to lower the number of green certificates from 1 January 2014.

As per ANRE predictions, green energy subsidies would cost €10bn ($13.4bn) over the next decade.

Currently, Romania has an installed solar capacity of just 70MW, with another 320MW of installations under development.

Of all the renewable energy projects, wind energy has received the maximum investment - the country presently has 1,600MW in wind parks.

Wind energy firms will continue to receive two certificates for each MWh generated.

Meanwhile, countries such as UK and Germany are also under pressure to reduce renewable subsidies, following many years of support from the governments.

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